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Galileo Galilei/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby. Tim is in his backyard at night. He is looking at the moon through a telescope. Moby walks up behind him. Moby is holding an envelope. He pats Tim on the back. Tim is startled. TIM: Aaaah! Please don't sneak up on me! MOBY: Beep. Moby hands Tim an envelope. Tim reads from a typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, who was Galileo? From, Yumi. Galileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer and physicist. An image shows Galileo Galilei. TIM: His discoveries with the new invention of the telescope changed our understanding of the universe. An animation shows Galileo at a desk in his study, looking out the window at the night sky through a hand-held telescope. TIM: And his experiments in physics overturned beliefs that had been held for thousands of years. He was born in 1564 in Pisa, Italy. An image shows a young Galileo looking at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. TIM: At 25, he became a professor of mathematics at the University of Pisa. Galileo had his own ideas about how the universe worked, and he taught theories that contradicted those of Aristotle. An animation shows Galileo at a podium and a blackboard, teaching a class. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, back then, pretty much all of physics was based on the ideas of Aristotle, a major Greek philosopher from the fourth century B.C.E. An image shows Aristotle. TIM: Aristotle said that heavier objects would fall faster than light ones. Galileo argued that the speed at which objects fell to the ground was constant. Animations compare Aristotle's idea of falling objects with Galileo's idea. In the Aristotle animation, a bowling ball falls faster than an orange and hits the ground first. In the Galileo animation, a bowling ball and an orange fall at the same rate and hit the ground at the same time. TIM: But to scientists in Galileo's time, anything that went against Aristotle's ideas was suspect. An animation shows an older man frowning at Galileo, who is teaching students. TIM: That university did not renew Galileo's contract, so he moved on to teach at the University of Padua, near Venice. A map shows the country of Italy. An animated dotted line shows the route north from Pisa to Padua. TIM: In 1609, after hearing stories about the invention of a telescope in Holland, Galileo built one of his own and turned it toward the stars. An animation shows Galileo in his study at night, looking out his window with a hand-held telescope. He is drawing what he sees. TIM: In early 1610, he published his findings in a book called The Starry Messenger. An image shows an open copy of Galileo's book. TIM: He reported that there were mountains and valleys on the moon; that four moons revolved around the planet Jupiter; and that the Milky Way is made up of individual stars. An image shows Galileo with his hand-held telescope, examining the moon, Jupiter with four of its moons, and the stars of the Milky Way. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Yeah, well, Jupiter has way more than four moons, but Galileo's telescope just wasn't very strong. An image shows the planet Jupiter, with dozens of moons around it. TIM: These were huge findings, though, and Galileo was appointed as court mathematician at Florence. A map of Italy shows the cities of Pisa, Padua, Venice, and Florence. An animated dotted line shows the route south from Padua to Florence. TIM: A few years later, in a paper on sunspots, Galileo wrote that he supported Copernicus's theory of the solar system. An image shows a sketch of sunspots on a page of Galileo's paper. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Nicolaus Copernicus was a Polish astronomer who believed that the Earth and other planets revolved around the Sun. An image shows Copernicus doing a geometrical calculation. Behind him is a drawing representing the solar system, with the Sun in its center. TIM: This contradicted Aristotle, who believed everything revolved around the Earth. Two images compare Aristotle's conception of the solar system with that of Copernicus. TIM: Not to mention the Catholic Church, which also put the Earth at the center of the universe. An image shows the Vatican, which is the world headquarters of the Catholic Church, located near Rome. TIM: When Galileo wrote a pro-Copernicus work called Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems, the church took action. An animation shows Aristotle's Earth-centered model of the universe being crossed out. TIM: Galileo stood trial in Rome in 1633, where a court forced him to say that Copernicus was wrong. An image shows Galileo being interrogated in a courtroom by church officials. TIM: They also confined him to his own house for the rest of his life, and the sentence against him was read publicly at every Italian university. While under house arrest, Galileo wrote another major work on the motion of objects, which would later influence Isaac Newton's theory of gravity. An animation shows Isaac Newton sitting at the base of a tree. He is reading Galileo's book entitled ''On Motion. An apple falls on Newton's head, and he ponders the event.'' TIM: Of course, after Galileo's death, most of his ideas were proven correct, including his support of Copernicus's solar system. An image shows our solar system, with our Sun at its center. TIM: But Galileo's biggest contribution to science may have been his reliance on the scientific method, instead of on abstract theory. He used observations and experiments instead of philosophy and thought. In doing this, he was able to get a more accurate picture of the world than folks who just believed what they wanted to. An image shows Galileo performing an experiment by dropping two differently sized balls from a tower window and watching them fall. A second image shows an ancient Greek philosopher pondering two differently sized balls and writing ideas in a book. Moby is looking through Tim's backyard telescope. TIM: Hey, let me see what you're looking at. Moby gives the telescope over to Tim. Tim looks through its eyepiece. He sees an observatory, with its large telescope pointed directly at him. Text on a sign next to the observatory reads: Maxwell Observatory. TIM: Huh. Hmm. There's something kind of weird about that.Category:BrainPOP Transcripts